SABINA
Sabina exchanged a look with John, whose smile had turned upside down. Before he could say anything, she asked Harriet Blanchford, “Tell us, please, why you decided to pay the ransom?”
“Bertram convinced me it had to be done,” she said. “Another note was delivered this morning. Even more harshly worded and threatening than the first. It said my husband’s remains would be … disposed of in a most disgusting fashion if the seventy-five thousand dollars wasn’t paid this afternoon. The threat was too great to be ignored.”
“Do you have the money with you?”
“No, Bertram has it. He is on his way to deliver it to the specified location.”
“And that is?”
“Near one of the bandstands in Golden Gate Park.”
Sabina repressed a sigh. As gently as she could, she said, “I must say I wish you had consulted with me before withdrawing the funds.”
“You would not have been able to talk me out of it. My mind was made up. Besides, there was no time for a consultation. The ransom is to be paid no later than four o’clock.”
“One of us could have accompanied your son,” John said, “perhaps apprehended the culprit—”
“I wouldn’t have allowed it. It might well have jeopardized the safe return of my husband’s remains. The note promised in its crude way that if instructions were followed to the letter, Ruben would soon be back in his final resting place.”
“Unfortunately, the promises of kidnappers of any stripe are seldom to be trusted.”
Sabina gave him a reproving look; he was not always as tactful as he should be. The old matriarch glared at him. “Are you saying these fiends won’t keep their word?”
“Not at all,” Sabina said quickly. “They may well return the body or inform you where it can be found.”
“But it is a possibility I should be prepared for?”
“I’m afraid so. But even if that should be the case, it doesn’t mean that any harm will have been done to the body. It might still be recovered intact.”
“By whom? You? You have no idea who the kidnappers are or you would have said so by this time.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Sabina said. “I am gathering information that I expect will soon reveal their identities.”
“Indeed? What sort of information?”
“I would rather not say just yet.”
“If you are being deliberately evasive, Mrs. Carpenter—”
“I assure you, I’m not. Merely cautious. You do want me to continue my investigation?”
“Naturally. I came here to keep you informed, not to discharge you. I want those fiends caught and punished for their heinous crime, whether they keep their promise or not.”
“They will be,” John put in. “And if at all possible, the seventy-five thousand dollars will be recovered and returned to you as well.” Leave it to him to mention the money.
“That is the least of my concerns.” With the aid of her cane, Harriet Blanchford rose to her feet. “I’ll be going now. I want to be home when Bertram returns from the park.”
“Please let us know right away of any new developments.”
“I will.”
John, in his courtly fashion, sought to take her arm as she started toward the door. She shrugged off his hand. “I am quite capable of making my own way, young man.” She squinted up at him through her glasses. “You really ought to trim those whiskers of yours,” she said then. “Blackbeard the pirate is one breed, Blackbeard the detective quite another.”
Sabina hid a smile as the door clicked shut behind her. The expression on John’s face was a delight to behold. He was not at all used to dealing with women of Harriet Blanchford’s age and outspoken manner, and she’d left him more than a little nonplussed. Not that he would admit it. And of course he didn’t.
* * *
John soon departed, not saying where he was bound for but only that he didn’t expect to return before closing time. Alone in the quiet office, Sabina attended to necessary paperwork—reports, invoices—that had begun to pile up on her desk. While she worked, part of her mind reviewed the Blanchford case and what she’d discovered about the Gold King scandal.
The former was the least mystifying of the two. The fact that a second threatening note had convinced Harriet Blanchford to pay the ransom, she decided, was a blessing in disguise. Usually it was a bad idea to give in to the demands of kidnappers of the living or the dead, but in this case it might well hasten a successful conclusion. She was reasonably sure now that she knew the how, why, and who of the matter. By tomorrow, if the next development happened as she now anticipated, and if her informants came through with the necessary information she’d requested, she would know for certain and proceed accordingly.
The Gold King business was still a disturbing puzzle. Had Carson been mixed up with the high graders and somehow escaped being identified as one of the gang? Had Artemas Sneed been paroled from San Quentin, and was he in fact blackmailing Carson? And what, in the name of all that was holy, was the bughouse Sherlock up to? If only she could talk to him again! She would demand straightforward answers this time, if necessary at gunpoint. But of all the tasks she had set for Slewfoot, Madame Louella, and their coterie of sources, the present whereabouts of the elusive Mr. Holmes would likely prove the most difficult.
She mentally replayed her conversation with Ross Cleghorne. He’d said that Carson had returned to San Francisco and taken a position with Monarch Engineering in the summer of 1887, the same month that the gold-stealing scheme had unraveled and the known gang members arrested. A coincidence? Or—
A sudden thought occurred to her. George M. Kinney, the man who had masterminded the gold-stealing plot, had been described by Ephraim Ballard as as an investor and former Gold King Mine stockholder. Had he been a client of Montgomery and DeSalle, Carson’s father’s brokerage firm? If so, it was quite possible Carson had known him.…
Ross Cleghorne might have the answer to that, but asking him any more questions might put him on alert. Who else could she consult? Ah, yes, Theodore Bonesall. The manager of Western States Bank, he was both a stock-market investor and a former client for whom she and John had successfully handled an embezzlement matter.
Western States Bank was on the Telephone Exchange. Sabina gave the operator the number, and after the usual delay in connecting and another as Mr. Bonesall was summoned to the telephone, she asked her carefully worded questions.
He had two pieces of information for her. The first answered her queries and unfortunately added to her doubts about Carson. Yes, Mr. Bonesall said, he’d known George M. Kinney moderately well before greed and poor investments had brought about the man’s downfall. Kinney had in fact been a client of the Montgomery and DeSalle brokerage firm, and a close enough friend of Evander Montgomery that the latter reportedly had been badly shaken by the news of Kinney’s arrest and conviction. That being the case, it was almost certain that Carson and Kinney had been acquainted, thus strengthening the likelihood of Carson’s involvement in the gold-stealing operation.
The second piece of information, casually offered by Mr. Bonesall near the end of their conversation, was bemusing in a different way. For he asked if she was still keeping company with Carson Montgomery. How had he known she was? Well, as he’d told her partner, she and Carson had been seen dining together on two occasions, once by him and once by an acquaintance.
“You told this to Mr. Quincannon? Was he the one who brought up the subject?”
“No, I did. We met in passing and spent a few minutes together over coffee. I happened to mention it to him, and I must say he was keenly interested. Shouldn’t I have?”
She wanted to say, “No, you shouldn’t. My personal life is of no concern to anyone but me.” But it wouldn’t do to take a sharp tone with a former client who had been cooperative and might require the agency’s services again. She settled for saying, “It’s of no consequence, Mr. Bonesall. Thank you again for your time and your candor.”
So John was aware of her liaison with Carson. Knowing John and how he felt about her, “keenly interested” was an understatement. More likely he had been and still was acutely jealous. And no doubt he considered the relationship to be much more intimate than it was, imagining all sorts of lewd goings-on between her and the suave Mr. Montgomery. Why hadn’t he said anything to her? Sneakily checking up on her and Carson? She wouldn’t put it past him. Well, as long as he kept quiet, so would she. Let him stew in his own masculine juices. It served him right.
Sabina was just finishing up the paperwork when the young man arrived with an envelope clutched in one grubby hand. She knew him: a young half-wit named Cheney who acted as a runner and errand boy for several individuals, Madame Louella among them. He handed her the envelope without speaking, grinned foolishly when she gave him a quarter in exchange, and left her alone again.
The sheet of notepaper inside the envelope bore a single line of writing in a flowing hand.
Whereabouts A.S. known to me by 7 P.M.
Madame L.
A.S.—Artemas Sneed. The Gypsy fortune-teller had outdone herself; Sabina hadn’t expected to hear from one of her informants so soon. Very fast service, indeed.
The Seth Thomas clock on the wall read 4:55 as Sabina pinned on her straw boater, donned her cape, and left the office. She had just enough time for an early, leisurely meal at Darnell’s, one of the small restaurants near Union Square she favored, before once more venturing to Madame Louella’s abode on Kearney Street. Despite another long day and the grim nature of the situation with Carson, she hadn’t lost her appetite: She was, in fact, famished.